Deflect Reflection

This afternoon I finished up my latest pair of socks, from a pattern called Deflect.

In my previous post, I spent some time pointing out flaws. Not this time. Okay except for the odd unevenness in the picking up of the gusset stitches on the left sock. But besides that, I'm pretty happy.

I had a bit of panic toward the end of the second (or, right) one. Even though I thought I'd divided the hank evenly by weight when winding it into balls, I either mis-weighed or wasn't consistent with my tension. The first sock had several yards remaining when it was finished; I saw that the second sock was going to cut things closer. Much closer, it would turn out.

When I finished grafting the toe on the right sock I had exactly 5 inches left over. Barely enough to weave in the ends properly. I don't think I've ever cut a project so close. I still had the leftovers from the first sock, but having to use a scrap to finish up the toe would have been so demoralizing. I kind of dodged a bullet this time. That's what I get for ignoring the yardage listed in the pattern. It seems I got lucky this time. All's well that can be woven in well.

I like so much about this pattern. I like the fact that there is a left and right sock, and hope that I can remember that when wearing them. I can imagine looking down and seeing these cables snaking down into the inner sides of my shoes (shudder). I like how the cables split and their little cablet spawn continue twisting on their merry way down toward the toes. I worry that they might sag a bit doe to their sparse ribbing, but we'll soon find out. Overall, a cool pattern.

What's next? I'm thinking pillows. We just got a new duvet cover that has a lot of earth tones in it. Rather than try and find what a friend refers to as "show pillows," why not just make some? There a lot of great patterns out there in all kinds of shapes -- square, rectangular, hexagons, round, tubes. I've seen some stranded patterns that might be fun to play with. And the cable bug hasn't departed, so there may be a few more twists and turns in my near knitting future. I've also seen some good cabled pillow patterns out there. I'm toying with the idea of coming up with something on my own. If anyone has a favorite cable stitch dictionary or design book that you could fill me in on, I'd appreciate it.